


Die Hard Isn't a Christmas Movie

by MooseFeels



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Christmas, Fake Relationship, Family, Jewish Character, M/M, Orphans, While You Were Sleeping AU, underage relationship (fake very fake and everyone is weirded out by it), viktor and Yuri are brothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-02-12 02:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12949326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseFeels/pseuds/MooseFeels
Summary: Yuri almost gets mugged on a train platform. Almost.(Or: Yuri accidentally gets himself and his brother Viktor adopted by a large, happy, Japanese family, and Viktor falls in love).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> merry chrysler mildsweet

Yuri fucking hates December. He hates this whole time of year; he hates the big tree in every window and the bigger trees in department store windows. He hates the incessant fucking music and he hates the fucking carols. He hates this time of year. Viktor’s working, anyway, (Viktor’s always working) and the house is empty so Yuri goes into the studio, to practice. Lilia gave him a key.

Yuri fucking hates the giant coat he’s got to wear over his leggings and sweats. He hates the scarf he wraps over his nose and the hat he has to shove over his ears. He hates the bell ringer at the bottom of the stairway, before the L. He hates the stupid clothes and the ribbons and bows. 

Yuri tosses a coin into the booth’s dish and hops the turnstile. He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his feed, his music turned up loud enough that he feels the hand on his shoulder before he hears the footsteps. He looks up-- two guys, big. 

“Excuse you?” Yuri says, his headphones still in. 

The guy in front of him frowns and says something, louder, and gestures, slightly. 

And he’s got a  _ knife _ . 

Yuri looks at the knife and he looks back at the guy and he doesn’t know-- he just doesn’t know what to do. 

That’s when another hand pulls him back and another person-- one in a uniform, the booth attendant, Yuri thinks-- approaches the guy with the knife, reaching forward, his body language placating and neutral. 

The station attendant reaches for his pocket-- Yuri can’t hear anything, not even the music, just a numb ringing in his ears-- and the guy dodges forward, pushing the attendant aside.

Yuri dodges and watches the man run off. 

Yuri turns back, and the station attendant is  _ gone _ . Yuri looks around and then looks down and--

He’s on the tracks. The station attendant lays on the tracks with a gash in his side, bleeding.

“Help!” Yuri shouts, and his voice rings emptily across the platform. “Anyone! Fuck, Please!”   
He looks around and pulls out his headphones and hops down off the platform and to the tracks. 

The attendant is in his twenties, pale with round features and wide brown eyes behind tacky, blue plastic glasses frames. His eyes are closed and his expression slack.

Yuri grabs him by his lapels and shakes him, just a little. “Wake up!” he shouts. “You’re on the tracks-- you fucking idiot, wake  _ up _ !”   
But the attendant stays asleep. His eyelids flutter, and he groans, ever so slightly, but he stays knocked out.

Yuri pulls out his phone, hands shaking, but that’s when he hears it.

Rumbling. The train. 

The fucking train, the one damn day it’s  _ not _ late--

Yuri grabs the guy by the shoulders and pulls him from the center of the tracks to the edge and covers him with his body as best he can. 

The air tickles his back and neck as the train rushes by.

“Help!” Yuri calls out once the train stops. “Help!”

* * *

 

It’s not  _ just _ Christmas Day, today, but Viktor doesn’t observe either of the days that this is, so he doesn’t mind coming in to the library to work on the post-finals shelving. 

Yuri doesn’t remember Mama and Papa. He doesn’t remember Papa pulling the atlas out and showing the long, long way they traveled to come all the way from Russia to Chicago. He doesn’t remember Mama standing in front of the stove and singing to the oatmeal. He doesn’t remember Mama and Papa holding each other and dancing slowly in the kitchen. Yuri was just a baby, too small, too little to remember. 

Yuri doesn’t remember Papa’s books. He doesn’t remember Mama’s proud, clear voice. Papa’s flowers. Mama’s pottery.

Viktor thinks that’s probably for the best, all things considered. Yuri can’t miss what he didn’t have. Yuri can’t miss Viktor’s birthday. He never had it. And a few years ago, Yuri stopped asking about it all. 

So Viktor  _ doesn’t _ miss his birthday, alone, every year. 

Viktor’s shelving when his phone buzzes in his pocket, when it keeps buzzing, and that’s how he knows it’s an emergency. 

Only a few people have his number. Chris is on the other side of the world, with his boyfriend. Yakov would never call before four or five. And Yuri doesn’t call at all, he just texts.

Which means, whoever is calling him, today-- 

Viktor fumbles with the armful of titles in his arms and fishes his phone out of his pocket and swears under his breath. 

“What’s wrong?” He asks, automatically. 

“I’m at the hospital,” Yuri says, his voice sounding rushed and scared. “There was a guy, on the tracks, and they don’t want to let me leave yet and I’m--”

“Where are you?” Viktor asks.

“Northwestern,” he says.

Viktor leaves the books on a shelf and starts jogging toward the break room. “Who was it?” He asks. 

“I--”

The phone cuts off and Viktor looks at his phone-- battery dead. 

Viktor pulls on his coat. 

“Viktor?” Georgi calls as he jogs past.

“Yuri’s in trouble. Might be hurt,” he says.

“Oh fuck, okay, we’re cool-- go,” he says. “Call if you need anything.”

Viktor jogs out of the library and catches a cab across town to the hospital. 

“I’m looking for my brother?” He asks someone at reception. “His name is Yuri he’s--”   
“Oh!” The nurse at the desk cries, “You just missed the rest of them-- fourth floor, room 437.”

Viktor nods. He didn’t realize he’d been  _ admitted _ . His stomach sinks and he throws himself into the elevator and rides up and he searches and--

Yuri is sitting in a chair outside a door, head tucked between his knees. He gets nauseous when he’s nervous like this. 

Viktor jogs up. “Yuri!” He exclaims. “Are you okay?”

His brother’s head bobs up, his face pale and scared looking. He dives for Viktor, and Viktor pulls him in tight. 

His little brother is still shorter than him by about half a foot. His head, flocked with shoulder-length blonde hair, tucks easily under his chin. 

“What happened?” Viktor asks, pulling away, holding Yuri’s head in his hands and looking at him intently. “Are you hurt?”   
“I’m fine-- there were some muggers and--”   
“You can see him now,” a nurse says, standing halfway in a doorway. 

Yuri squirms away from Viktor and follows the nurse into the room, darting quickly. 

“Yuri!” Viktor cries and dodges after him, stepping into a room where someone is sleeping, hooked up to all kinds machines, heart monitor a low, soft beeping. 

“He’s still under from the anaesthesia,” a nurse says, holding a clipboard, looking  _ very _ official. “He sustained a fairly serious concussion when he fell but the outlook is good. He just needs some time to heal himself. And of course, we have his wound on his side stitched. He didn’t lose nearly as much blood as he would have if you hadn’t applied pressure the way you did-- that was good thinking.”

Yuri nods a few times, looking at the stranger, his expression struck and overwhelmed. 

“Yuri,” Viktor says, one more time, “What happened?”

“I was getting on the train and there were muggers and he-- and then they-- and he was on the tracks,” Yuri says. He’s rattled. Losing words-- this doesn’t happen to him,  _ ever _ , really.

“But you’re okay?” Viktor repeats. “You’re fine? You’re safe?”   
Yuri nods, his green eyes looking away. “I’m fine,” Yuri says. “I’m fine, Viktor.”

And that’s when a large, loud group of people burst into the room. 

There’s a small woman, at the front of the group of people, followed by a slightly taller man and then two tall women. Behind, a younger woman in sweats walks into the room. 

The small woman rushes to the bed and bends low to tap at the stranger’s face, saying something insistent and worried. 

“Ma!” One of the women says, her bleached hair fanning like a sun around her round face. She says something else, in quick Japanese. 

The nurse smiles. “You must be the family. It looks bad but you should be optimistic,” she says.

“What happened to him?” the woman with blonde hair asks, and the man and the other, taller woman follows. 

“There were muggers, on the platform,” Yuri says, interrupting, look up at her. “They had a knife and-- and they threw him on the tracks.”

“Who are you?” The taller woman asks, turning from the bed. She’s slim and tall, probably about the same age as the smaller woman. 

“His boyfriend,” the nurse says.

Viktor turns, looks at his brother. 

“His  _ what _ ?” He says.

The nurse’s eyebrows go from resting to all the way to her hairline. 

“I see you all have a lot to talk about--”   
“Are you his emergency contact?” The young woman asks Yuri. 

“He saved him,” the nurse says. “He pulled him from the tracks.”

The smaller woman looks up from the man on the bed. She looks at Yuri. At Viktor’s brother, all fifteen years of him. And she steps across the room and holds his shoulders in her hands and says firmly, softly, “I am glad you are in our family.”

She pulls Yuri into a sudden, crushing hug. 

“MA!” The woman with blonde hair cries again. 

“Mari,” the small woman replies, politely. 

Viktor covers his face with his hands. “Yuri,” he moans. 

“Oh,” the small woman says. “Do you know my son?”

Viktor looks at her. “I’m Yuri’s brother,” he says. “Viktor Nikiforov.”

“Ah,” she says. “I’m  _ Yuuri’s  _ mother.” She gestures to the bed. “Katsuki Yuuri.” She gestures to herself. “Katsuki Hiroko.”

Viktor looks at his brother, frustrated and overwhelmed and still panicking. 

“You and your  _ secret boyfriend have the same name _ ?” Viktor asks, his voice shaking. He scratches against his scalp. 

“When he wakes up, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill him,” the woman with blonde hair says, driving her fist into her palm. 

“Mari,” the smaller woman scolds, ever so softly, and she goes back to the side of the bed and wraps her hand into her son’s. 

“I need to talk to the doctor,” Mari says. 

“I’ll come with,” the younger woman says. 

“I need to-- just, right quick, with my brother,” Viktor says, and he grabs Yuri by the shirt and drags him out into the hall. 

“Yuri,” Viktor says, and he does everything he can to keep his voice level and calm. 

“They wouldn’t let me ride in the ambulance with him unless...unless I  _ knew _ him. So I told them and when we got here, I couldn’t tell them I  _ lied _ and leave him alone,” he says.

“He’s not your boyfriend?” Viktor asks. 

“ _ Fuck _ no, he’s like your age,” Yuri spits out. “ _ Fuck _ .”

Viktor pulls his brother back into his arms. 

Yuri doesn’t say anything for a long moment, before he says, “Fat idiot saved my life.”

Viktor lets go, looks at his brother. 

“They were trying to mug me,” he says. “They had a knife.”

“ _ Ah, _ ” Viktor says, feeling the word spring in his mother’s accent to his lips. 

“Fuck,” Yuri says. He covers his mouth and dashes to a bathroom. 

Viktor watches him go, feels the energy drain out of him, and falls into a chair in the lobby.

And after a long bit Yuri sits back down beside Viktor.

“We have to tell them,” Viktor says. 

“Once he’s out of the hospital,” Yuri says. 

Viktor looks over at his brother. He’s leaning forward, looking down, his hood pulled over his head and ears. He’s protective of himself that way. Very serious about his boundaries. Today must have been exhausting for him. 

“I have to make sure he’s okay,” Yuri says. Calmly. Flatly. 

Viktor sighs, heavily.

One of the women from the room, the younger woman, drifts toward them. “I’m Yuuko,” she says. “A friend of the family.”

Yuri looks up at her, and then back down and away. 

“Yuri,” he says. 

“Viktor,” Viktor says, standing to take her hand. 

“We must have ruined your Christmas,” Yuuko says, laughing a little. Her voice is bright and nervous. 

Viktor smiles, falling back into the patter of  _ friendly, attractive stranger _ and out of  _ panicked older brother _ . “We don’t observe it actually,” he says. “But thank you.”

“We’re Jewish,” Yuri says, from the chairs, still not looking. 

“Oh!” Yuuko exclaims.

“It’s fine,” Viktor says.  _ Please don’t ask any more questions.  _

Yuuko smiles. She turns, looks at Yuri. “So how did you and Yuuri meet?” She asks. 

“Dance,” Yuri says, obliquely. Viktor barely suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. 

Yuuko gasps. “He’s dancing again?” She asks, her voice surprised and cheerful. 

Yuri looks at her, wordless, before stiffly nodding. 

Her eyes grow wide, sparkling. “He didn’t  _ tell _ us,” she says, her voice low. “Have you seen any of his programs from before--”   
“Yuuko!” A large man calls, from the hallway. “Is Yuuri okay?” He asks. “I dropped the girls off with Minami and came as soon as I could.”

“Takeshi!” She exclaims and runs into his arms, pulling him close. “He’s out of surgery and the doctor said he sounds fine!”

“Oh thank god,” Viktor hears him say, and he turns back to Yuri. 

“Do you  _ actually _ know this Yuuri?” Viktor asks.

Yuri shakes his head. “I thought I could pin a ballroom class on him,” he says. “I didn’t  _ plan _ this, Viktor, fuck.”

“Takeshi will send you some of Yuuri’s programs!” She exclaims. “We’re so glad to hear he’s dancing again-- I guess you must do ballet?”

“Yuuri’s dancing again?” The taller woman, says, finding them in the lobby. 

“Yuri and Yuuri met through dance,” Yuuko says. 

“And he didn’t tell me? The bastard,” the taller woman says. She tosses her dark hair from her shoulders. Her eyes are red rimmed and she looks tired with worry.

“Is he okay?” Yuri asks. 

She nods. “He’s healing. They don’t think he’ll be awake for a few days. You’re probably missing your Christmas or something.”

“He has to wake up,” Yuri says. “He has to be okay. I have to know.”

“Can I give someone my number?” Viktor says, looking at all of them. 

The taller woman nods. “I’m Minako Okukawa. Yuuri’s godmother,” she says. “Mari and Toshiya and Hiroko are talking to the doctor. You can leave it with me.”

Viktor nods, fishes out his business card. “Thank you,” he says. 

“Please,” Yuri says. “Can we stay just a little longer?”

“The doctor was saying it might be a week,” Minako says. “He’s not waking up tonight. Go home. If you’re--” She pauses, her mouth pulling into a frown.Viktor fights the urge to match her expression-- the  _ idea _ that his fifteen year old brother would be dating this adult stranger is alarming, at best, and terrifying at worst. But her features compose back into something normal.  “Yuuri would want you to rest,” she says.

“Yura,” Viktor says, the old nickname catching in his throat. “Please.”

Yuri looks at him and rolls his eyes. Stands up, and that’s when Viktor sees his duffle bag slung over his shoulder for the first time, and he slinks off. 

Viktor watches him.

“It was lovely meeting you all,” he says, and he runs off, after his brother. 

Viktor hates December, and most of all, he hates December 25th. 


	2. Chapter 2

Yuuri doesn’t celebrate Christmas; no one in his family does. They celebrate other holidays, though, ones the school always raised an eyebrow about him missing classes for. Yuuri doesn’t celebrate Christmas, so he doesn’t quite  _ mind _ coming into work for time and a half, especially because work is slow and it’ll give him time to read. And besides, if he works Christmas, he can  _definitely_ get the week for New Year that the family takes. 

Yuuri wakes up on Christmas Day and brushes his teeth and combs his hair. He looks at himself in the mirror and sighs, his hand resting on the extra weight that's settled on his belly and hips since he's had to stop training. He pulls on his sweater and pants and grabs a book and a granola bar and heads down to work. 

He’s bundled up tight, in his booth, reading over a technical manual for some yoga poses he wants to check out, when someone drops some change in his dish and hops over the turnstile. 

Yuuri looks up and watches him head to the platform. 

Yuuri sighs. Takes the money. Tenders him for a ticket he won’t come to take, and hunkers back down into his book. 

Or, he tries to. But it’s distracting, the constant ache in the cold, darting up from the ball of his heel, along the back of his calf, to his knee. He’s been stiff there for nearly a year-- since he fell so hard and spent two weeks without walking. It’s not like he ever had a  _ career _ on the ice or anything. Just a hobbyist. No tragedy. Nothing to cry over. 

Yuuri takes a deep breath. Remembers the stretch the physical therapist told him to use. 

But then--

The kid from the turnstile isn’t alone on the platform anymore. There’s two men--  _ large _ \-- surrounding him. Their voices are loud and sharp. 

Yuuri gets up from the booth and steps out. 

And then he’s between the kid and the man and the man has a knife.

And then there’s  _ pain _ and then there’s  _ nothing _ . 

Yuuri doesn’t know how long there’s nothing. It’s not a feeling like sleeping. It’s not even a feeling like passing out. 

It’s a feeling of nothing, and then  _ something _ . He feels dizzy almost, and he tries to move to throw up somewhere else instead of on himself, but then--

And then he tries to open his eyes, but the feeling is so heavy and strange--

And then there’s white hot, electric pain in his side, so intense that it’s everything--  _ everything _ . 

And then, then he opens his eyes.

* * *

 

It’s the third day, and there’s almost a routine. 

Yuri goes to dance, and then Viktor meets him at the studio and walks with him to the hospital. And Yuri spends hours and hours and hours at the hospital, and then they come home. Viktor goes to work and walks Makkachin and they wait. 

He’s a stranger. The small man with dark hair lying in the hospital bed is a perfect stranger to both of them, despite what Yuri told the paramedics and then this stranger’s family. Maybe he tells bad jokes or maybe he doesn’t tip. Maybe he drives drunk and hurts animals. Maybe he has a lovely smile and can play the piano, beautifully. Viktor doesn’t know. Yuri doesn’t either. 

They don’t really talk about it, but Yuri and Viktor have had trouble talking to each other for a few years now. 

Third day, and Yuri comes out of the room the stranger is in and says, “I gotta get some air.”

Viktor nods. 

The stranger’s family is nice. Huge, but busy. There’s a business, and people always have to be there to staff it. They’re busy through the holiday season and can’t afford to close up, especially with, well, someone in the hospital. There’s usually one of them there, but never all of them.  And Yuri--

“I’ll text you,” Viktor says, stepping into the room, his book in his hand. 

Yuri doesn’t want the stranger to wake up alone.

The stranger with a name almost, but not quite, Yuri’s own. 

Viktor sits down on the chair beside the bed and studies the stranger’s face. There’s the small indentations on the side of his nose where glasses might rest. His lips are pink and chapped; his cheeks are round and full. There’s a softness to his delicate, graceful features, something surprisingly pretty. He looks, almost, like a sleeping prince from a fairy tale, under his blankets and so strangely still. 

And of a sudden, his breathing hitches and his features twist. His face pulls and shifts, his mouth and nose twisting a little, his brow furrowing. 

“Yuri?” Viktor says, knowing his brother is probably well away outside.

But the stranger-- Yuri-Not-Yuri-- opens his eyes. His dark, brown eyes, and looks at Viktor and rasps with a dry throat, “I think I’m dead?”

Viktor shakes his head. “You aren’t,” he says. “You were in a coma. You were stabbed.”

His beautiful, deep brown eyes well up with tears, suddenly. “Why did you stab me?” He asks. 

Viktor feels his heart simultaneously speed and plummet, deep into his chest. “I didn’t stab you!” He exclaims, hurriedly. 

“I’m dead and you’re so pretty and you stabbed me,” he says, his voice sounding so small and quiet and sad. 

“I didn’t stab you!” Viktor repeats. “You saved my brother. Someone was going to stab him but you intervened and...they stabbed you instead.”

“Oh,” he says. He blinks, slowly, his expression still confused and a little pained. “I’m Yuuri,” he says. His name is longer, different. It holds softer, sweeter in his mouth. 

“Viktor,” Viktor replies, extending his hand outward.

Yuuri takes his hand, but doesn’t shake it. Just holds it. 

His eyes settle heavily. He falls back asleep.

Viktor sits in the chair, Yuuri holding his hand, unsure what the hell just happened. 

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, the name like honey in his hungry mouth. 

He pats his pockets with his free hand and pulls out his phone. 


	3. Chapter 3

The room used to be empty; now it is emphatically, overwhelmingly full. The room is packed with Yuuri’s relatives and nurses and doctors. Viktor is standing over in a corner, a strange expression over his  _ stupid _ fucking face. And Yuri stands in the doorway and he looks at the small man on the bed and he wills him, with all of the energy he can muster, to wake up. 

_ He woke up _ , Viktor had said, his voice soft and fascinated. Yuri fucking hates him for it. He’s glad that Yuuri didn’t wake up  _ alone _ , but he still wishes he’d been there. That he could have seen. And now the room is overfull with people waiting for him to wake up  _ again _ . 

Yuri stands in the doorway, and someone beside him says something. It registers slowly, like coming from another planet. 

Yuri turns. 

“Hey,” the woman with bleached hair says, her voice low and serious. “You okay, Yurio?”

Yuri frowns, reflexively. “That’s not my name,” he spits. 

She shrugs. “Yuuri is my brother’s name,” she says. “It’s weird.”

“He doesn’t seem bothered by it,” Yuri answers. 

“How old are you?” She demands. “How did you meet?”

“Old enough,” Yuri answers. “None of your business.”

Her expression is thunderous and stern. 

“Does Phichit know about this?” She asks. 

“Who?” Yuri replies.

She nods. “Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

“It was a secret,” Yuri says. “I didn’t want to tell anyone.”

Mari’s brow furrows deeper. She pulls out her phone and starts texting someone. 

Yuri  _ huffs _ and storms off to the water fountain, to refill the stale water in his bottle and to get a moment of  _ space _ .

Yuri wants to know. He  _ has _ to know; he has to  _ see _ . But the crush of  _ everyone _ and that  _ stupid _ look on Viktor’s face is suffocating him; makes him so angry he wants to  _ scream.  _

He just wanted to make sure he was  _ okay _ ; why did everything get so fucking complicated? 

Yuri stalks back over to the room and stands in the doorway and looks into the crowded room and waits for Yuuri to wake up. For all of them to wake up and life to carry on as normal, with school and ballet and college applications and ballet and stretching and avoiding his brother and their legal guardian. 

Yuri looks into the crowded room; he waits.

* * *

 

Everything feels heavy and sort of dry, but Yuuri eventually blinks awake, the lights overbright.

“H’llo?” He asks.

“ _ Yuuri _ ,” he hears his mother breathe, her voice soft and full. The same way she sounded when he came home from college, mostly in one piece.

“Ma?” he asks, intelligently, before he feels her arms around him. He blinks a little more awake.

“Ma?” He asks again. “Wh-- ‘m I in the hospital?”

“Mr. Katsuki?” An unfamiliar voice says. Yuuri manages to get his eyes to work and he sees a doctor, standing behind his mother, who is draped over the front of him. And his dad is there and Mari and Minako and also? A beautiful, beautiful man and someone in the doorway who looks pissed about something. 

“Mr. Katsuki,” the doctor repeats. “You were involved in a minor mugging incident and have been in the hospital for the past several days. Are you comfortable?”

“Thirsty,” Yuuri manages to rasp. His mother pulls up sharply and pours a glass of water. Positions the straw in front of his mouth.

He feels  _ strange _ . Heavy and sore and still very  _ tired _ . 

He blinks a few times. 

“Hey, Mari,” he says. “Hey Dad.”

Mari grins. “Good drugs?” She asks.

“Huh?” Yuuri asks. 

“We’d like to ask you some questions,” the doctor says. “And of course, the police would, too.”

“He just woke up, jackass,” Minako says from the back of the room. “Let him get his bearings.”

Something  _ flares _ and  _ hurts _ ; pulls the feeling to the top of his attention. 

“O _ w _ ,” he hisses. 

The tall man, the beautiful man that Yuuri almost thinks he might recognize flinches forward, into space. 

Yuuri looks at him, trying to recognize something. Trying to put it  _ together. _

“I’m  _ tired _ ,” he says.

“You fell,” someone says, from the doorway, someone young with blonde hair and a serious expression. “Off the platform, hard.”

The doctor nods. “We think it’s very likely you’re concussed-- for us to do tests though, we’ve needed you to be awake.”

“Sorry,” Yuuri says. “Sorry? Sorry. Sorry.”

“Yuuri,” Mari says from the doorway. 

His mother brushes his hair away from his forehead and shushes him softly.

“Mr. Katsuki,” the doctor chuckles. “It’s nothing to apologize for. It’s just fortunate that your boyfriend was there to pull you from the tracks.”

Yuuri pulls that sentence into his brain, tries to think about it. Something about it is very  _ strange _ , something he can’t quite place.

He looks back at the people on the other side of the room, at the beautiful man and the blonde boy.

“My  _ boyfriend _ ?” Yuuri asks, panic speeding his heartbeat suddenly and overwhelmingly. 

“Yurio,” his mother says beside him. “He’s such a nice boy, Yuuri, why didn’t you introduce us?”

Yuuri looks at his mother, and then looks at the two people standing by the door; the beautiful man and the  _ boy _ . 

“I--” Yuuri says, looking at the beautiful man. “I don’t remember.”

The doctor makes a noise, low in his throat. “We have you scheduled for an MRI, of course,” he says. 

“What?” Yuuri asks. 

“Hey,” Mari says. “Maybe everyone but Mom and the Doctor and Yuuri could clear out? Just so he can think for a moment.”

Yuuri’s hand shakes where he goes up to feel his head, sticky with sweat. There’s a pain in his side, and he hisses as he seems to  _ pull _ something. 

“Yeah,” Mari says, rounding people up and pushing them out of the room. 

And then it’s Yuuri and his Mom and the doctor, and he’s still so  _ tired _ , so overwhelmed, so  _ scared _ and so  _ tired _ . 

“I’m tired,” he says. 

“I know,” his mother says, her voice calming and soothing. “We’ll talk to the doctor, okay? And I’ll take care of you.”

Yuuri nods. 

“I have a boyfriend?” He asks. 

His mother nods. “Such a nice boy,” she says. “He saved your life.”

Yuuri blinks a few times, before covering his mouth and leaning off the bed to puke. 


	4. Chapter 4

Hiroko remembers holding Yuuri’s hand in the grocery store, looking at the aisles of vegetables and rice and sauces and patiently, quietly asking him what the various packages say. He has to practice, especially reading and writing. English is her son’s first language, but Japanese is a close second. English in the business and in school, Japanese in the house. French and Japanese in Minako’s studio, although Yuuri is still small enough that dance is more play than discipline. 

“Your boy is talented,” Minako had said to her, one afternoon, standing in the entryway while Yuuri went into the back to change. 

Hiroko had glowed with pride for that. She still does. 

Hiroko remembers telling Mari she was going to be a big sister, her own hand rested over her belly, over the potential that was to come. 

Hiroko remembers Yuuri coming home from college, his degree hard won, the half-moon scars of clenched fists bitten into the soft meat of his palms. Hiroko remembers the troubled sleep of his first month at home, still waking up to assignments and work that didn’t come. 

Hiroko remembers Yuuri at fourteen, walking with him quietly to a therapist. 

Hiroko remembers her forehead slick with sweat, exhausted and hurting, being handed her son, so small and so new. Round, chubby cheeks and dark hair, his eyes closed tightly against the brightness of the world, new around him. 

Hiroko remembers all these things, as she sits by her son’s hospital bed and holds his hand while he vomits, waking up for the first time after being asleep. 

“My poor Yuuri,” she says, softly, the words springing easily to her mouth. “I’m here. It’s okay.” 

Yuuri sits back up, looking pale and groggy. His pupils are too big, and he squints without his glasses. She pulls his glasses case from her coat pocket and pulls out his glasses for him. He takes them and examines them like a foreign object for a moment before putting them on. 

He looks at her, still looking tired and confused. Her heart clenches; her poor boy. 

“Ma, I don’t feel good,” Yuuri says in Japanese. 

“I know,” she answers. “You were  _ very _ brave, though. The doctor wants you to answer a few questions and then maybe he can help you feel better.”

Yuuri nods, jerkily. He turns to look at the doctor.

The doctor smiles. “Mr. Katsuki,” he says, “You fell onto the train tracks and we’re worried about brain damage, which might account for your continued disorientation. You’re going to have an MRI soon. The police would like you to answer a few questions about what happened. The surgery for your wound went well.”

“I was  _ stabbed _ ?” Yuuri asks. His voice is baffled and sad sounding.

The doctor nods. “Yes,” he says. “We already gave you a tetanus shot and you are receiving intravenous antibiotics.”

“Okay?” Yuuri answers. “Ma, I’m gonna--”   
She has the pan ready. Yuuri vomits again. 

She turns to the doctor. “Yuuri is very sensitive to medications,” she says. 

The doctor nods. “I’ll tell the nurse,” he says. “He’s healing well, though.”

Hiroko nods. Yuuri moves back to the bed, sweating a little. She pulls a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe the sweat from his brow. 

“I’m tired,” Yuuri sighs. 

“I know,” she says. “Rest, little Yuuri.”

Yuuri nods, before his eyes settle back closed. 

The doctor slips out of the room quietly.

Hiroko watches over her only son.

* * *

 

Viktor stands in the hallway with his brother and Yuuri’s family and he feels something unfamiliar in his chest, a fluttering in his heartbeat and heat on his cheeks. 

The second time Yuuri woke up, he was more disoriented but he looked at Viktor. Looked at him, and Viktor isn’t sure what it is about this that has set him racing, embarrassed and flustered.

Yuri looks at the door to the hospital room with a scowl on his face, something anxious and unsure in his expression and body language.

Viktor resists the urge to lay his hand on his shoulder. Yuri doesn’t like being touched and these past days have been so tense for him already. 

“Yuri,” Viktor says, quietly, while Mari and Yuuri’s father have a conversation in Japanese. “He’s awake. Can we--”

But then someone rounds a corner and says, “Mari! Mr. Katsuki! What happened?”   
Viktor see’s Mari’s eyes flutter closed for a bare moment, almost a prayer, before she says, “Hi, Phichit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: what if plot  
> also me: five hundred words of yuuri's mom loves him very much

**Author's Note:**

> the first chapter is REALLY plot dense and super different from how i usually write. i've been in a funk and this is the most i've put together in Weeks.


End file.
